When I saw the title of this post I thought the old Mystic class was being reborn - seems that is not the case. From a mechanical strength and fun to play standpoint I didn't dig too deep into these yet, but thematically I love the Oath of the Spellguard paladin and Vestige Patron for warlocks. The Spellguard makes me think at least vibe-wise of Warders from Wheel of Time, while a warlock with a fallen god as a patron that is trying to regain some of its old power just sounds really interesting from a roleplaying standpoint. Love the concepts!

Spellguard is back. Nice.

Magic Stealer Rogue seems...underpowered until Level 9.

LOVE the Vestige Patron. AND IT'S NOT A SUMMON OR FAMILIAR. GOOD. MORE LIKE THIS.

Mystic Arts Monk being the idea of a spellcasting Monk back is welcome. It not relying on points is an automatic plus. Needs a slight bit more synergy with the base class, tho.

Any word on something related to the 5-6 UAs w/content that haven't any product announced for them? I hope recent shakeups didn't kill their development...I liked Ancestor Sorc & Psion.

The Vestige Warlock looks really interesting.

The Monk seems...meh.

Rogue is definitely a bit situational- spellcasting isn’t rare even in early games, but it’s not extremely common either, and the shift towards spell-like attacks on a lot of low level caster NPCs doesn’t help. Really could use a more reliable feature or at least a strong passive effect.

Printed out a copy of these for one of the DMs in the after school club I host. He was VERY excited to have his players give them a try. 

Especially for the Paladin!

Quote from The_Ace_of_Rogues >>

Rogue is definitely a bit situational- spellcasting isn’t rare even in early games, but it’s not extremely common either, and the shift towards spell-like attacks on a lot of low level caster NPCs doesn’t help. Really could use a more reliable feature or at least a strong passive effect.

Sometimes it feels like the left hand doesn’t know what the right hand is doing. Or, at least, that the people designing class features have a different understanding of what constitutes a “spell” than it would seem is indicated by the rules.

Quote from wagnarokkr >>

Quote from The_Ace_of_Rogues >>

Rogue is definitely a bit situational- spellcasting isn’t rare even in early games, but it’s not extremely common either, and the shift towards spell-like attacks on a lot of low level caster NPCs doesn’t help. Really could use a more reliable feature or at least a strong passive effect.

Sometimes it feels like the left hand doesn’t know what the right hand is doing. Or, at least, that the people designing class features have a different understanding of what constitutes a “spell” than it would seem is indicated by the rules.

To be fair, to a certain degree this is what playtesting is for- to see how the feature performs out in the wild. Maybe I'm underestimating the number of casts per day relative to the number of uses.

Upon further inspection:

Monk's 17th level feature is lazily copied from Eldritch Knight Fighter, & is functionally useless as written. I propose instead:Once, per Long Rest, in place of Flurry of Blows, you can cast a Sorcerer Cantrip you know that has a casting time of 1 Action that does not require concentration & has no material components a number of sequential times equal to a roll of your Martial arts Die. (This is intended as a flashy big bang, all or nothing, finisher)

Paladin's Bond needs longer range(I know it was copied, range-wise, from Peace Cleric). Otherwise I'm glad for the SpellGuard's return, & it works as I'd hoped.

Rogue is a Battery more than a Stealer, since, as written, you can charge a Level 1-2(Later 3) Spell Slot from ending a Level 1 Ritual Casting that the caster casts on themselbves once the cast is complete, effectively giving infinite recharge of low-level spell slots due to how easy Short Rests are to pull off. Best freaking Rogue(No, really) ever until they nerf the Short Rest loophole and require a Hostile creature to have cast the spell on a Friendly one.

Warlock issues:As written if I kill the Vestige Companion, did I kill their Patron? Is the usage of Contact Other Plane just phoning the Companion? The Companion needs a less confusing name immune to rules lawyering.

Also, are all the UAs from last year null & void? I'm jonesing for an update on them.

Quote from MaedraDawnkeeper >>

Rogue is a Battery more than a Stealer, since, as written, you can charge a Level 1-2(Later 3) Spell Slot from ending a Level 1 Ritual Casting, effectively giving infinite low-level spell slots. Best freaking Rogue(No, really) ever until they nerf this loophole. 

I'm not sure I'd consider a ritual casting in progress to be an "ongoing spell", but even if you do, the fact that you can only use that feature once per short rest does put some limitation on abusing it.

Quote from wagnarokkr >>

Quote from MaedraDawnkeeper >>

Rogue is a Battery more than a Stealer, since, as written, you can charge a Level 1-2(Later 3) Spell Slot from ending a Level 1 Ritual Casting, effectively giving infinite low-level spell slots. Best freaking Rogue(No, really) ever until they nerf this loophole. 

I'm not sure I'd consider a ritual casting in progress to be an "ongoing spell", but even if you do, the fact that you can only use that feature once per short rest does put some limitation on abusing it.

 Let me clarify:Once the Ritual Spell is cast on the caster, it can be "promoted" to a second or higher slot, as written.

Also, short rests are pretty easy to work into non-combat. A short rest isn't setting up a bivouac or anything.

Meh, the alternate Monk feature sounds like a bad combination of overpowered and unlikely to get much use.

I think the Paladin works okay as-is- with a reach weapon you've  got the same 10ft radius as an Aura.

 So, after a bit of inspection:

Warrior of the Mystic Arts

it's basically a monk-flavored eldritch knight. The level 17 feature has a minor problem of... not doing anything at all (monks only get 2 attacks, and in 2024 they don't need to take the attack action to use martial arts or flurry of blows, so spending 2 attacks to cast a spell is the same as using your action to cast a spell). It's otherwise fine.

Oath of the Spellguard

the name isn't accurate -- the spellguard has almost no features related to protecting allies from magical attacks (guardian bond is useful against attacks, which most spells aren't; spellguard strike is offensive, not defensive; aura of concentration is mostly useful for supporting spellcasting allies; only counterspell, spell-breaking blade, and eternal spellguard actually relate to protecting against spells). If you ignore the name, it's a perfectly useful subclass.

Magic Stealer

This subclass is a bit of a mess conceptually

• Empower Sneak Attack: doesn't actually have anything to do with stealing magic, you get the bonus if a spell is cast. As such, most of the time it's going to be empowered by allies' spells. Which is useful enough, but unclear what it's supposed to have to do with stealing magic.
• Drain Magic: primary use for this is likely buff recycling (someone casts a short duration buff affecting multiple targets including the caster, at the end of the encounter use drain magic to end the buff and recover the slot). Also, there's no "stealing" effect, since the slot goes to the subject, not the magic stealer.
• Magical Sabotage: Steal Resistance is probably busted. Not sure why Disrupt Spell is an Intelligence save.
• Occult Shroud: is fine.
• Improved Drain Magic: see comments on drain magic.
• Eldritch Implosion: empower sneak attack is now actually useful for stealing magic... though with a 30' range it's still not going to be very useful on enemies, most stuff that's casting spells at that level is going to be doing it at very long ranges or has the constitution save from hell.

Vestige Patron

I mostly like this template, though I'm not sure how bonus actions on the vestige companion actually work -- it appears that it can only take those actions if you spend a bonus action on commanding it, in which case I guess it takes the dodge action and uses the bonus action.

Quote from Pantagruel666 >>

 So, after a bit of inspection:

Warrior of the Mystic Arts

it's basically a monk-flavored eldritch knight. The level 17 feature has a minor problem of... not doing anything at all (monks only get 2 attacks, and in 2024 they don't need to take the attack action to use martial arts or flurry of blows, so spending 2 attacks to cast a spell is the same as using your action to cast a spell). It's otherwise fine.

Oath of the Spellguard

the name isn't accurate -- the spellguard has almost no features related to protecting allies from magical attacks (guardian bond is useful against attacks, which most spells aren't; spellguard strike is offensive, not defensive; aura of concentration is mostly useful for supporting spellcasting allies; only counterspell, spell-breaking blade, and eternal spellguard actually relate to protecting against spells). If you ignore the name, it's a perfectly useful subclass.

Magic Stealer

This subclass is a bit of a mess conceptually

• Empower Sneak Attack: doesn't actually have anything to do with stealing magic, you get the bonus if a spell is cast. As such, most of the time it's going to be empowered by allies' spells. Which is useful enough, but unclear what it's supposed to have to do with stealing magic.
• Drain Magic: primary use for this is likely buff recycling (someone casts a short duration buff affecting multiple targets including the caster, at the end of the encounter use drain magic to end the buff and recover the slot). Also, there's no "stealing" effect, since the slot goes to the subject, not the magic stealer.
• Magical Sabotage: Steal Resistance is probably busted. Not sure why Disrupt Spell is an Intelligence save.
• Occult Shroud: is fine.
• Improved Drain Magic: see comments on drain magic.
• Eldritch Implosion: empower sneak attack is now actually useful for stealing magic... though with a 30' range it's still not going to be very useful on enemies, most stuff that's casting spells at that level is going to be doing it at very long ranges or has the constitution save from hell.

Vestige Patron

I mostly like this template, though I'm not sure how bonus actions on the vestige companion actually work -- it appears that it can only take those actions if you spend a bonus action on commanding it, in which case I guess it takes the dodge action and uses the bonus action.

 The Monk is based off of a 3.5 subclass, so it's not surprising.

Huh, completely failed to process that you could charge the Sneak Attack off a friendly cast. Makes that reliable, although needing to hit next turn or waste the use is still a big negative for such a limited use feature.

Vestige warlock is probably fine mechanically but all of its abilities are in one basket the vestige pet.  I'm okay with a couple being there, but every single sub class feature being in the pet seems a bit much. I kind of like the spell list getting to pick one of the cleric domain lists. Personally I think they should just allow any cleric domain not one of 4 as when the game expands and more domains open up there will be others that fir but sub classes wont get updated for that. 

Quote from MaedraDawnkeeper >>

Magic Stealer Rogue seems...underpowered until Level 9.

Yeah a decent number of rogues are like that. No idea why they didn't change their subclass progression, 3 to 9 is a big gap. 

I will say I am pleased to see they didn't just go with alternate names to grant temporary hit points or multiple uses of misty step.

Now we just need to get the designers to grasp that building more subclasses on non-scaling, 1st level concentration spells is also poor design.

Quote from RolandtheCrownbreaker >>

I will say I am pleased to see they didn't just go with alternate names to grant temporary hit points or multiple uses of misty step.

Now we just need to get the designers to grasp that building more subclasses on non-scaling, 1st level concentration spells is also poor design.

Teleporting & Temp hitpoints bad because...? Oh right, recurring patterns in design mean lazy now in this age of social media brainrot. Y'all wouldn't have survived 4e.
Also, not everything has to be nor should be based on 1st-level spell attack that does big boom tier damage. Y'all taught them to dismiss ribbon features as not being a big enough boom:These kinds of spells are the replacement for allegedly useless features.

Quote from MyDudeicus >>

Quote from MaedraDawnkeeper >>

Magic Stealer Rogue seems...underpowered until Level 9.

 

Yeah a decent number of rogues are like that. No idea why they didn't change their subclass progression, 3 to 9 is a big gap. 

Well, in 2024 they've got the Cunning Strikes at 5th level and Reliable Talent and 7th, so there are already prominent features filling the gaps. Still, needs a better 3rd level feature- the limited uses on boosting Sneak Attack and chance to just blow one hurts it a lot.